Page 40 of Break My Fall

Great. It fell to him. Itwashis job, but Gray hated to be the one to have to do it. “Meredith, after I brought your car back to you this afternoon, I talked to Mo. He came over here to look at your van, and he found a listening device inside the exam area.”

ELEVEN

Meredith heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. Why would someone bug her van? Tracking her wasn’t enough? Why did they want to hear what she had to say?

Or did they want to hear what she said to her patients when no one was supposed to be listening? “That could be a problem.”

“What do you mean?” Her dad set his fork down with a clink.

She cleared her throat. “Sometimes, I tell people who look like they might need some help that they can call me. I give them my phone number.” She tried to find the words that wouldn’t make everyone at the table freak out, but she wasn’t sure those words existed. “I might tell them there are safe places in Gossamer Falls if they decide they need to escape.”

Everyone at the table closed their eyes as they absorbed her words.

“Merry-girl”—her mom sounded tired—“you know how much I love your big heart, but you can’t save the whole world.”

“I’m not trying to save the whole world. I’m trying to save a few people who live less than twenty miles from me and who I believe are being abused. I can’t walk away without giving them some hope. What kind of person would I be if I did that?” Meredith scraped up the final crumbs of her pie to keep herself from saying anything else.

Her dad reached for her free hand and gave it a squeeze. “We know. And we’re proud of you. We don’t want you to change, but we do want you to be careful.”

“I think that ship has sailed.” Mo took another slice of pie and placed it on Gray’s now empty dessert plate, then put another slice on his own. “Anyone else want more?”

Meredith almost said no, but then she changed her mind. “Me. Chocolate can’t fix everything, but it sure can’t hurt.”

“Well said.” Mo slid the pie onto her plate.

“What’s this?” She pointed from her pie to his. “You gave me a skinny piece.”

“That’s because you’re going to eat half of it and decide you don’t want more.”

She took a huge bite out of spite, put her hand in front of her face to keep anyone from seeing her chew, and spoke around the food. “You just want leftovers.”

Mo blinked at her like a baby owl. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

She took another bite and, to her annoyance, realized that her agitation was leading to an unhappy tummy, which led to the decision that she was done. For now. “I guess we should head over to my place and get this done.”

She spared a glance at Gray. He hadn’t messed around. His second slice of pie was almost gone.

“We can help clean up first. If the house is bugged, an extra thirty minutes won’t change anything.” Gray took a sip of his coffee. “Before we go over there, I need to hear more about these people who are being abused.”

Meredith’s heart, the traitor, swooned at his words. He didn’t doubt her words or her conclusions. How was she supposed to get over him when he kept being sweet and considerate? When he insisted on respecting her opinion and seeing things the way she saw them?

She was doomed.

She forced her wayward thoughts back to the question. “There was a teenager, the first time I went to Neeson. The bruises and the way he flinched from contact ... it gave me shivers to think about what his life must be like. I gave him my card and made up a story about how he shouldn’t hesitate to call if he had any trouble with his teeth.”

Meredith would never forget that boy. He’d been so tough and so scared at the same time. “I almost didn’t go back after that—I wasn’t sure I could take it—but the next time I didn’t see anything particularly problematic. Nothing that I knew in my gut was an abusive situation. Not in Neeson at that time,” she clarified. “I’m convinced there are two girls being trafficked in another county, and there’s a family that I saw a few months ago who had some dental injuries that didn’t match with their explanations. I’m afraid the dad, and maybe the mom, are alcoholic meth users.”

Everyone at the table grimaced.

“But the last time I was in Neeson, I spoke to two women. One was single, and I think she’s a meth addict. I assured her we could help. Gave her my card.”

“And the other?” Gray asked.

“The other was a mother. She was wearing long sleeves, but when she picked up her son, the sleeves rode up and I could see bruises on both arms that looked an awful lot like someone had grabbed her and shaken her. She also had a black eye. It was skillfully covered with makeup. But we were sitting close together in my tiny office, so it was easy to see. And she was moving gingerly.”

The memory made her heart ache. “I’ve seen battered women before, and I’d bet a new dental clinic that she’d been beaten. Probably had bruised ribs. Maybe broken.”

Meredith forced herself to take a breath and a drink. Recounting the visit was making her blood boil. “She’s young. Probablynot even twenty-five. She reminded me of Cassie. Blond hair. Blue eyes. But where Cassie, despite the hard things she’s been through, is full of life and laughter, this woman...”

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